Currently the US Army is investigating methods to remove unexploded shells from artillery ranges and secured battle zones. One promising method is the use of remotely controlled vehicles having robotic accessories for shell removal. Since the vehicles will perform highly risky operations, it is likely that they will be damaged or destroyed with some regularity. It is therefore preferred that such vehicles be as cheap and expendable as possible. One practical and relatively inexpensive way to obtain such vehicles is to modify small commercially available off-road vehicles. It is preferred that these modified vehicles be capable of both manual and robotic operation.
To meet part of the above requirements, we have uniquely converted an existing manual brake actuator into a manually overridable, remotely controllable device. The converted actuator has a base and a clamp releasably fixing the base to the handle bar of a vehicle. A brake cylinder biases a lever swingable on the base toward a brake releasing position. A link having a common swing axis with lever has a hinge connection remote from this common axis, and the link includes a carrier closer to the common axis than to the hinge connection. The carrier cams upon the lever as the link swings the lever in a brake applying direction.
The converted actuator has a one-piece frame easily made from flat metal stock, and a first leg of the frame connects to the base at the common axis. A second frame leg is releasably clamped to the handle bar, whereby clamps for the base plate and second leg can be loosened to turn the actuator to a new angular position on the handle bar. A third frame leg swingably mounts one end of a motor unit which drives the link. The opposing end of the motor unit is releasably pivoted to the link by a quick release pin at the link's hinge connection. The motor's back drive force is greater than the biassing force of the cylinder, so that if the motor unit loses power during remote brake actuation, the motor unit will keep the actuator in a brake applying mode. Removal of the release pin decouples the motor unit so that the motor unit can not pivot the link or maintain brake actuation.